Life is a movie... if you can get a ticket of course

So I went to the movies last night. The movie started at nine, so at ten to nine I arrived at the cinema. There were two queues. There was a queue for people who had paid for and received tickets. And there was a queue for people who didn't have tickets. And there were a lot of people who had booked tickets online but who didn't have the tickets with them. And there were also some people who had a pass but no ticket. There was no queue specifically for them, so they were just joining either queue.

But it was all quite good-humoured at first. We're in Canada, eh! We just stand in the queue and roll our eyes at each other and congratulate ourselves on how laid back we are.

It's not like there was nobody in charge. In fact, there were a lot of people walking around with clipboards, wearing film festival tee shirts with volunteer written on them. Mostly they stood in front of the door, while everyone queued patiently. Occasionally, one of them would walk down the queue I was in and ask whether everyone had a ticket.

Unfortunately I had someone with me who didn't have a ticket. And who consequently should have been in the other queue. But then we would have had to stand in different queues, and he's a teenager so I figured we would just queue together and then I would buy him a ticket at the box office when we got inside. Neither queue was moving after thirty minutes of standing around and I didn't want him to have to stand on his own.

Also, I figured as this was the queue for people with tickets we'd get into the box office before all the tickets were gone.

Normal resourceful behaviour in every way.

Are you all still with me?

So then, in the way of queues that have to stand around for long periods of time without any explanation, the adjoining people in the queue started chatting and bitching about the queue. As my adjoining people were an elderly couple, who were getting completely pissed off at having to stand on the street in the dark, I volunteered to go up and find out what the frig was going on.

I approached the most approachable-looking of the pack of volunteers milling around hugging their clipboards against their free tee-shirts (which were incidentally, the ugliest film festival tee-shirts I have ever seen, white with AFFA in black on the front).

I asked the little woman with the big tee-shirt and the clipboard why there was a delay.

There was a question and answer session on in the theatre, but it was nearly over.

Being experienced at extracting information from officious Nova Scotians at this stage, I said: 'so we'll be getting in soon, then?'

She looked a little panicked. 'Well, they'll have to clean the theatre then.'

'Okay so, and then they'll let us in?'

'Oh yes.'

'Great', I said. She looked relieved. 'And when will that be?' I asked.

Another panic look.

'About twenty minutes?' I suggested helpfully.

She did not compute.

'Fifteen minutes?'

You often have to give them an alternative, so they can pick the easiest one.

'Oh no', she said, 'at least twenty minutes.'

'Grand so', I said. She smiled in relief.

Back I went and told the old dears and resumed queuing while he went for a coffee and we held his space and kept her company. The girls arrived and joined the queue beside us and nobody said anything about queue-jumping so I figured that was okay.

And then someone came down the queue a minute later and told everyone that there was a question and answer session on inside but it was nearly over and then they would clean the theatre and then they would let us all in in about twenty minutes.

Old dear rolled her eyes at me.

Eventually, the queue started moving and after another bit we got into the theatre.

The girls went in to keep seats and I stood at edge of the box office queue to get Justin a ticket.

There were two volunteers standing behind the counter with a huge pile of tickets and a lot of paperwork and a box with names and envelopes with tickets in them. All of which looked to me like the guest list. (which in normal societies that function properly is kept separate from the box office, as you all know).

The queue seemed to be made up of people who were either a) collecting free tickets, or b) collecting tickets they had purchased online, or c) collecting tickets because they had a pass hanging around their neck (which of course in a functioning society would get you into the theatre without having to queue). There was a lot of signing of forms for said ticket and waiting for the computer or something to print stuff, but nobody seemed to be buying a ticket for cash.

So, I figured nobody would mind if I just nipped in and got a ticket for cash while the people behind the counter were waiting for the computer to spit out some random piece of bureaucratic paper they needed to part with tickets.

So I nipped in and waved a twenty at them and asked could I buy one.

No, apparently. I had to queue to buy a ticket.

I explained that I had queued for an hour already.

I must have been in the wrong queue. I would have to go outside and join the queue for buying tickets.

I looked outside.

It was a really long queue.

So I decided that in the absence of any system on their part for the efficient vending of cinema tickets for cash I was not participating in their effing Kafkaesque nightmare just so Justin could go to the movies.

We stood in the lobby for a while near the box office, sussing out the lay of the land.

There were too many volunteers milling around to leg it in without a ticket (remembering of course that I have a ticket for myself and it would be just Justin who was getting in for free).

Justin was up for it.

I figured we'd be caught.

The pair behind the counter were studiously avoiding eye contact with me so that they didn't have to deal with an actual film-loving, paying punter while they were handing out the freebies.

Eventually I approached one of the volunteers and explained my predicament and asked if I could just buy a ticket so we could sit down because we had been waiting for an hour.

They looked sympathetic, as they had been following my progress, there not being much else for the seven of them to do.

I know they sympathised with me. There was a lot of looking panically at each other and then eventually, a group shrug and someone said 'there's nothing we can do, it's just the bureaucracy.'
I said: 'you are the bureaucracy. Why can't you just do something about it?' and walked away before I effing hit one of them.

A Scottish woman behind me said helpfully: 'you just have to let them do it and wait your turn.'

I often get told stuff like this in similar situations. I think it is because people feel I don't understand the Canadian way. They don't realise that I just think it is the stupid way.

'I don't think so', I said.

All of this had taken about twenty minutes, so it was now nearly ten o'clock and I had been standing for over an hour.

Then, suddenly, with loads and loads of people still queuing outside, they locked the doors. There was a small queue left inside, so I joined it and judging from the enormous pile of unclaimed tickets I figured I was going to succeed.

I gave Justin the thumbs up.

He gave me one back.

Justin is eighteen and about six feet tall and was standing in the corner wearing combats, a baseball cap and a hoodie over it. But he had been really patient.

I was very proud of him.

I was determined to get him a ticket after all this.

Just then, the senior clipboard person came over and said she was sorry for the problem, but I just had to queue up if I wanted to buy a ticket.

I pointed out that I was, in fact, doing that very thing.

She pointed out that I had jumped the queue.

I pointed out that the door was locked, so for all intents and purposes, this was the end of the queue, which is where I had been told to go, so in fact, I was obeying orders.

She pointed out that I had been standing around inside for a while, so that didn't count.

I pointed out that I had queued for an hour OUTSIDE in the queue for PEOPLE WHO ARE FUCKING ORGANISED enough to have a ticket.

She looked completely confused then. Well why do you want a ticket, she asked.

For my friend, I said.

'Why didn't you buy him one in advance, then?'

She hugged her clipboard to herself triumphantly.

'Because I didn't friggin' know he was coming when I bought the tickets, did I!'

I probably was screaming in frustration at this point, I don't know, the rushing of blood in my head was blocking out all sound.

'Well, you should have made him queue to buy a ticket', she explained.

'He's a teenager! What, am I going to make him queue in the dark on his own.'

She looked over at Justin, who was leaning against the wall looking like a really smelly crack dealer, and then looked back at me in utter disbelief.

Well, it was worth a try.

'I am sorry I can't do anything', she said.

'That's okay', I said, 'why don't you just organise it better next year.'

She stared at me for a long moment and then turned and walked away.

Then it was my turn to buy a ticket.

Tickets in hand, we bounded up the stairs to look for the others.

There were at least fifteen rows of empty seats in the theatre.

Yes, that's what I said.

There were at least fifteen rows of empty seats in the theatre.

I was standing at the top of the stairs, gobsmacked with astonishment at the complete incapacity to organise a piss up in a brewery; that had led to a situation whereby the volunteers had locked the doors on a long queue of people who wanted to see the movie, before making sure the hall was filled with punters.

Said volunteers being volunteers because the Atlantic Film Festival is a film festival that's always whingeing about not having any cash.

Then the Scottish woman who had advised me to go outside and join the very end of the said queue stood behind me and loudly said: 'there she is, she's very brazen'.

I thought she was impressed with my resourcefulness.

I turned around and waved my tickets at her.

'I am, aren't I!' I laughed.

'Fucking queue-jumper', she hissed at me.

Justin looked at me and said 'what did she call you?'

'A fucking queue-jumper.'

'But we did queue!'

'I know.'

'For a friggin' hour, Queenie!'

'I know, Justin, I know.'

Anyways, the movie, The Stone Queen was good, but not good enough to have had to put up with bureaucratic bullshit for almost two hours.

A pox on the Atlantic Film Festival. You better not ever come to me looking for money.

And I have four more tickets for shows.

Two of which are for the same cinema.

Himself reckons they have a photo of me in the volunteer room to ensure I'll never get in again.

Sigh.

Is it me?

Or is it them?

That's all I want to know.

If it's me, I'll change. I'll become a better person. I will never again weigh up the benefits of two queues and pick the smarter one. I will go to the queue that inconveniences me the most and benefits the supplier of the service that I am purchasing the best.

I will.

I will swallow my consumer rights knowledge and let them fuck me around because my desire for efficient customer service is irresponsible on my part.

I will.

But I just can't help but think it's them.

They could have:

- Spent the hour we were all queuing giving people their freebies.
- Spent the hour we were all queuing sorting out ticket collections.
- Spent the hour we were all queuing selling us coffee, hot dogs, chocolate, tee-shirts.
- Spent the hour we were all queuing creating a buzz about the film festival, handing out fliers

In other words, they could have spent that hour we were all captive to them extracting money for us and SAVING THE ATLANTIC FILM FESTIVAL.

But no.

They were all in there seething about the woman who got the biggest clip board because her husband is on the board of the Festival.

And working out who was going to deal with the Irish woman going postal in the lobby because she didn't want to queue.

I can hear them now.

Effing come from aways.

They have no manners, do they!

They just don't understand it's the Canadian way, or the highway.

They think that just because all Canadian population growth from this year on will be due to immigration that they can come in here and take our jobs and then swan around demanding we treat people with respect just because they are paying punters.